Commentary on life with a southern accent

Friday, May 25, 2012

I have read quite a few stories about Brett Kimberlin over the past couple days, and still don't quite understand why he is not in prison. The stories of the bombings he is responsible for a generation ago are horrific, but the accounts of the brand of political terrorism he is engaging in today are just as chilling.

I won't retell the stories here that Patterico, Liberty Chick, Aaron Walker, Stacy McCain and others have already told in vivid detail about the harassment they have received and are continuing to receive at the hands of Brett Kimberlin and some of his friends. You should read their first hand accounts. (I'd never before heard anything about the type of harassment/terrorism called "swatting" until I read Patterico's post). As you will find, the abuse they have received has been going on for some time. Andrew Breitbart warned about Kimberlin.

Lee Stranahan proposed that today be "Everybody Blog about Brett Kimberlin" Day and Michelle Malkin has done an amazing job rallying the blogosphere in a "free speech blogburst" to call attention to the activity of Kimberlin and others and to help raise money to help those who have been targeted by Kimberlin & Co. Michelle has the mother of all blog roundups here, along with lots of background information and updates. Here is some background reading and some ways you can help from her post:

Ali Akbar of the National Bloggers Club has stepped up to the plate and set up a donation page to help support the bloggers targeted by Kimberlin. Please help here if you can. If you prefer PayPal, click here.

As is often the case, the right blogosphere has managed to make (to borrow a phrase from a Sara Evans song that I'll bet no one else knows but me) "something magic out of something frightening." The situation remains frightening, but the power we can muster when we all stand together, as one, against something that can only be described as evil is magical. If you don't blog, you can take a stand as well by posting the links above (and from Michelle's site) on your Facebook page, tweeting and retweeting them and contributing money. When I last checked, Michelle had over 100 blog posts listed in her roundup. I don't know if the mainstream media has picked this story up yet, but if they haven't they've certainly had to go out of their way to ignore it.

Please keep the bloggers Kimberlin & Co. are terrorizing in your prayers and do what you can to help spread the word.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Between the job I started 17 months ago and family time, it is difficult to do much blogging. But when I saw this amazing work by Duane Lester I had to link it up and make sure as many bloggers as possible saw it. Duane had his work at All American Blogger taken and published in a local paper without permission and with no attribution. Unfortunately, this happens too often with blog posts being used by other blogs, newspapers and even on radio and television, without permission or attribution.

What makes Duane's story different is that he did something about it. Read his blog post about the experience from start to finish, including the legal advice he got and what he did from there, ending in a tense in person showdown that was captured on video. You don't want to miss this and every blogger should bookmark this one for future reference. Read Duane's blog post, then watch the video:

Friday, December 03, 2010

I owe Kevin Aylward a couple hundred or so posts at Wizbang. It has been so long since I've done any political blogging. I've been doing some sneak peek posts about Sarah Palin's Alaska reality show at Big Hollywood, but other than that have been pretty quiet online. I've not even found much time for Twitter lately. And since I have yet to even put my Christmas tree up, I don't see me finding much time anytime soon.

My next update will be more about what I am doing, rather than what I am not doing (as this one is).

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Dan
Riehl, Melissa Clouthier and others already ripped that ridiculous Daily
Caller story to shreds yesterday, but I had a few comments of my own to add.

If you missed the story, it is titled, “True Stories of
Bloggers that Feed on Partisan Cash,” and here is the part that is most at
issue:

“It’s standard operating procedure”
to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative.
A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that “at least half the bloggers that are out
there” on the Republican side “are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad
sales.”

On those two statements, I call bullshit.I don’t know who the anonymous “Republican
campaign operative” and “GOP blogger-for-hire” are but I’ve been blogging since
2004 and I know many, many bloggers.I
know some of them fairly well and I can confidently say there is no way that 50
percent of bloggers are getting paid (especially beyond ad sales) to blog.Maybe I move in different circles, but in the
world of conservative political blogging that I live in, that is not the case.

Here is what I can tell you about what I’ve seen of bloggers
since I started blogging in April of 2004.I can tell you about bloggers who work all day at a job to pay their
bills and then come home and stay up to the wee hours to blog and get paid
nothing for it.I can tell you about
bloggers who pay out of their own funds for servers and blog design and to go
to events they want to cover.They often
go without other things, and sometimes anger their spouses by spending that
money, to be able to blog.I can tell
you about bloggers who would love to make enough money blogging to quit their
day jobs and devote all their time to their blogs, but have not found a way to
make it happen.

I think bloggers should be getting paid.Not by a candidate to say what they want them
to say without disclosing a relationship, but I do think they should be getting
paid for their work and I have been involved in discussions with other bloggers
about some ways that might come about.

I have at times made money blogging by getting a percentage
of ad revenue, but since I was part of a group blog most of the time I rarely
paid any attention to what ads were even running and it never influenced my
blogging.I have been paid by several publications
over the years to write columns.I have
been paid by a couple of candidates to work on their campaigns over the past
few years, but I rarely blog during the same time I am working on a campaign
(mainly because I don’t have enough time) and when I do I go out of my way to
disclose my association with the candidate and campaign, like I did this week.

Read Melissa Clothier’s post on the Daily Caller piece at Liberty
Pundits.She says much of what I
would have said if I had not already read her saying it better.I worked on the same RNC project that Melissa
cites (we actually became good friends while working together on it) and am on
the same tech listserv she mentions.We
did not get paid for it, but were happy to do it to give the RNC better insight
into the blogging community.

I am not going to defend Dan Riehl point by point since he
has already defended himself better than I ever could, but will say that anyone
who knows Dan has to know he says what he wants to say.And does so forcefully (and sometimes quite
crudely).

I’ve never taken money, in the form of blog ads or
otherwise, to blog about a campaign or issue.I have been asked by people working for campaigns to blog about certain
stories and have done it free of charge because they are things I would have
blogged about anyway.As a consultant to
campaigns I have asked bloggers to write about the candidates I’ve worked
for.I have asked frequently, in fact.And I will continue to ask and to attempt to
persuade them with my arguments for the candidate, rather than cash.

When the news about Tucker Carlson’s blog project came out I
was surprised because I’d never heard his name associated with blogging. Maybe he thinks over half of us are getting
paid to say what others want us to say.Maybe if he knew a few more bloggers he, or Jonathan Strong who wrote
the piece, could have asked a few of them and found out whether or not 50
percent were getting paid to blog. I
read at Dan
Riehl’s blog that Strong graduated from college in 2006 and has worked as a
congressional staffer and lives in Arlington.Maybe he doesn’t know that most bloggers don’t live in the DC area. Or even in California. I’d be glad to introduce him to a few dozen
who won’t make a dime.

I don’t doubt that there are bloggers who have sold their credibility
for money from rich candidates who are too stupid to realize that if they are
worth electing there are people who will write about them for free.I don’t doubt that there are consultants who
are evil and crooked as well.But the
majority of bloggers are not getting rich, and are not selling their
reputations to the highest bidder.The
fact that Daily Caller would publish such accusations with what appears to be little
investigation or corroboration, tells me more about their credibility than that
of the vast majority of conservative bloggers.

There was another story in the same news cycle yesterday about
Philly requiring bloggers to purchase a $300 business permit.For most bloggers, including most
conservative bloggers, that would not only wipe out any money they made
blogging, but would put them in negative territory.Bottom line is if you want to get rich
blogging, you’d do better to follow the Tucker Carlson model than the Dan Riehl
one.

Update: When I wrote about hearing about Tucker Carlson's blog project, I was referring to back before the Daily Caller was launched, when I first heard anything about the project. Before that when I heard Tucker Carlson's name I thought of MSNBC, not blogging. And the Daily Caller isn't a blog -- it is an online magazine -- although Jim Treacher is there and he is a great blogger. Some other good bloggers write for DC, too. It's just too bad they weren't assigned to this story.

Friday, February 05, 2010

I have not blogged much lately, kinda on purpose. When I blog my time somehow disappears into thin air and I have had too much to do around the house lately for that. I keep blogging in my head though. I listened to a CD today that I had not listened to in a while and thought "I should blog about this." When I cooked so much over the weekend and when I watched the kids play in the snow I thought "I should blog this." I even took some pictures to post. They are still on the SD card. When I went to my daughter's ballgame and, of course, every time I've read a news item...I've wanted to blog. But the computer was not in front of me at the time so no blogging occurred. Twitter is largely to blame. If not for the ability to micro-blog on Twitter a few seconds at a time, I would probably have gone into blog withdrawal. I have had a nice little break so I should be back to blogging more regularly now.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

With all the holiday activities, sick kids, puppies, and now back to school, I have not done any real blogging in a while. I think one of the reasons I have been so slack when it comes to blogging is due to Facebook and Twitter. It is so much quicker and easier to tweet something (even easier to retweet it) or to link it on Facebook, that I find myself spending much more time there than here on my personal blog or at Wizbang. I am going to ease myself back into it though. There is sooo much to blog about these days. My biggest problem might just be deciding which topic I want to choose. This cold as all get out weather we are experiencing (I read today that we may have the coldest winter in 25 years), the reemergence of terrorism as a front burner issue and Obama's lame job of addressing it, the 2010 mid-term elections, and the return of 24 (yea!) and other favorite television shows like Chuck, are just a few. If you have a favorite topic of interest, post it in the comments section.

Friday, November 27, 2009

I have been reading Lucianne Goldberg's site Lucianne.com for many
years -- certainly before I had ever even heard of a blog. It is one of
the first places I go each day to find out what people are discussing
in the world of news and politics. Most days Lucianne chooses one
"blogtruth" of the day to feature in her must reads at Lucianne.com,
but other than that links to blogs have are not posted on the site.
Lucianne is, and has long been, a huge fan of blogs though. Now you can
read the blogs Lucianne loves on her aptly named new site, BlogsLucianneLoves.com.
Some blog posts from here and at Wizbang will be featured on the site,
along with posts from many other blogs you all know and love.
Congratulations to Lucianne on what I am sure will be one of my
favorite daily reads.

Monday, October 01, 2007

John Hawkins has posted results of the 2007 edition
of his poll of right-of-center bloggers' favorite people on the right.
Next week he will poll for the least favorite. It will be fun to see
how many people make both lists.

Friday, August 25, 2006

If you live in or near North Carolina, and don't already have plans for October 7, check out Carolina FreedomNet 2006 sponsored by the John Locke Foundation. The featured speaker is Scott Johnson of Power Line. There will also be two discussion panels featuring North Carolina bloggers. I am very thankful to have been asked to participate and am especially looking forward to meeting some of the bloggers I have read for years.